Tag Archives: Inspiration

Fantastic post on the SLA Future Ready blog! Bruce Rosenstein lists some great ideas for renewing yourself and preparing for change. In my opinion, his post highlights the internal readiness for change that must be present when someone is serious about welcoming change into their life.

This list is derived from research for his new book about Peter Drucker. The post seems especially apropos as we near the end of another year (how did it get to be 2011?) of big and small changes.

At Cable&Clark, we fully embrace change and recognize that it is part of living and growing as individuals and as a company. That is not to say that change is easy nor does it always arrive in an expected manner, but it is always exciting.

Here are some of my favorites, slightly paraphrased, from Bruce’s post:

Get Organized for Change: Try not to think in terms of preserving the status quo. Instead, how can you look for and take advantage of changes in the workplace and society that may have an effect on you? (emphasis added)

Systematic Abandonment: In order to embrace the new, organize for change and expand your horizons, you‘ll need to find time. Most people are so busy that they can‘t add many new activities without dropping current ones, even those that they find satisfying and worthwhile. Regularly take a look at all your activities (inside and outside of work) and determine what can be dropped or scaled back to make way for something new, and potentially even more valuable. This could be the perfect opportunity to create more time for leisure activities such as playing in an amateur sports league; taking music, art or acting lessons; or doing more traveling. (emphasis added)

The Power of Self-Reflection/Retreats: Take time, at regular intervals, to assess the direction of your life. Does your current job reflect the kind of person you are now, or is it more reflective of who you were when you were hired? Are you sure you will be working for the same organization in five years, and doing the same kind of work? It‘s difficult for most of us to do this thinking in the midst of a busy daily schedule. Try to carve out some time, even a short period, for sitting or walking alone, without distractions. Many people find value in short retreats, even silent ones.

Networking for the New: Information professionals are world-class networkers, in person and online. This is an efficient and powerful way to learn about activities to add to your life. Studying the profiles of your friends in Facebook and LinkedIn can give you an idea of how people spend their time, and can be a great source of ideas. Talk to people to find out how they find time to engage in these activities, and to learn more about what they do. It could lead to a new outside interest, a volunteering opportunity, a new learning initiative, or even a new job.

Learning by Teaching: Drucker believed that no one learns as much as the person who must teach his or her subject. But that is only one reason to get involved in teaching. It may turn into a parallel career that you can do on a part-time basis while you work at your main job. It can provide volunteering opportunities, if you teach, for instance, at a religious institution. There may also be teaching opportunities within your workplace or within library-related organizations. Try to find people who are already teaching in some capacity, and find out how they got started.

As I’ve said many times, the buzzword right now (for law firms and librarians) is ‘value'; we are all trying to provide value to our clients. Since we are all in the same boat, I figure why not learn from the best…Google. For a some insight, check out this post on WiredGC. Here are the pertinent quotes:

It’s not good enough to apply normal management disciplines – we think that scarcity breeds clarity. If, for example, we have enough resources invested in something, we halve it and eliminate overheads.

When we build something we strive for ubiquity in usage and adoption. That helps us understand how customers react and then we build a revenue model.

We measure people every 90 days. We get 360-degree feedback on people every 180 days and that feedback is published to the whole company. People want reality. Ninety per cent of the rewards end up going to 10pc of the people.

Customers today have more choices and are more aware of our competitors’ offerings. Unless we can serve them 24/7, 365 days a year, competitors will eat our lunch. […] At the end of the day it’s the customer who owns the cash. That’s why we construct our organisation to deliver value. The underlying framework is to make it easier for people to do business, solve problems and move on.

I stumbled across this article on CNN while recently browsing the headlines. This is part of their ‘heroes’ series, and it was a great reminder of how glad I am for all the books and information that I had access to as a child.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862), Walden

So much happened these last 12 months, that we thought we might take an opportunity to count down a ‘few of our favorite things’…or, at least the things that made us think the most…

5) Blogs

Some of our favorites are:

3 Geeks and a Law Blog—Presents three different viewpoints from within the law firm from a Client Teams Manager, a Librarian and an Internet Marketing Manager. It’s forward-thinking and always has something interesting to say.

We closed out the year with exactly three months of business under our belts. In that short time, much has changed and we have learned a lot. Since this is a typical time for reflection, we thought we would share what we’ve learned and make you an offer.

1) Be flexible.
When we started this business new associate attrition was one of the top concerns of law firm management. This concern has evaporated in light of the new economy, and others have become more prominent, such as the continuing high cost of fee-based legal resources.

2) To look at information resources with fresh eyes.
Legal research has been held hostage by tradition, even though we are living in a new age. Oftentimes we continue to provide the same services and resources merely because that’s the way it’s always been done. There is nothing wrong with taking a chance on offering something new or canceling something you’ve always had; you can always reorder.

3) Information resources must be looked at holistically, regardless of media or source.
Law firms are realizing that all of their resources are interconnected, whether online, print or internal everything must work together to provide value to the user.

4) Importance of social networking for legal professionals.
Sharing information directly via the web has become a phenomenon. Tools like Twitter and LinkedIn allow lawyers to share and market themselves like never before. Where is this going? Who knows, but the journey will definitely be interesting.

5) Constant vigilance of the information resources spend.
Law firm costs are being scrutinized like never before, and this includes information resources. We are astonished at the amount of savings realized by some clients, in a short amount of time. Interested in seeing what Cable&Clark can do for you? Contact us for a free preliminary analysis of your 2008 numbers.

Seth Godin presented at the SLA annual meeting this year, and he was amazing. I have been subscribing to his blog ever since. Thought-provoking posts are regularly featured, and this one from Friday was no different…enjoy!

“Everyone isn’t going to be a leader. But everyone isn’t going to be successful, either.

Success is now the domain of people who lead. That doesn’t mean they’re in charge, it doesn’t mean they are the CEO, it merely means that for a group, even a small group, they show the way, they spread ideas, they make change. Those people are the only successful people we’ve got.”